Research & reports

Bas Spierings, Ilse van Liempt, Emiel Maliepaard · Tijdschrift voor Economische en Sociale Geografie · Europe

A study of social inclusion and exclusion processes in and around the Wijsgeren community garden in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. Positioned against a literature that has largely emphasized and celebrated community gardening's benefits, it examines the practices and experiences of both gardeners and non-gardeners, and identifies specific exclusionary barriers based on non-ownership and non-membership operating in and around the garden.

Justyna Kleszcz · Architecture Civil Engineering Environment · Europe

This paper compares urban farm initiatives across European cities (Paris, Barcelona, Vienna) and non-European cities (New York, Brasilia, Hong Kong), differentiating them by scale, purpose, and the role urban agriculture plays according to a developed taxonomy. A system analysis identifies common characteristics behind the growing popularity of new forms of urban agriculture. The paper argues that comparing the causes behind their emergence, how different solutions have been implemented, and the modifications arising from functional analysis of existing facilities is important for developing guidelines for the further development of urban agriculture systems, including in Poland.

Sandra Girbés Peco, Ana Inés Renta Davids, Lena De Botton, Pilar Álvarez Cifuentes · Social & Cultural Geography · Spain

This qualitative study, based on communicative methodology, examined "The Dream," a community development process initiated by a group of unemployed Moroccan residents in an impoverished urban neighborhood in Spain, centered on the Mare de Déu de Montserrat School, a Learning Community. The process led residents to create a self-managed community garden that improved their job training and built social networks, and the school is found to have fostered a horizontal, dialogical organization that placed neighbours in central decision-making and leadership roles, helping overcome barriers that had previously hindered community responses.

Luisa De Marco, Susan Denyer, Regina Durighello, Ege Yıldırım · · Germany

This chapter uses Bamberg, Germany, as a case to examine how a World Heritage site addresses its Outstanding Universal Value alongside intangible cultural heritage connected to the city's urban gardening tradition, and discusses environmental sustainability, social inclusion, and peace and security. It concludes that social cohesion, broad site accessibility, and municipal investment in heritage conservation support inclusive economic development in Bamberg, and that the city is generally peaceful and safe with a high degree of social cohesion, meaning all principal dimensions of sustainable development apply to the Bamberg World Heritage site.

Franklin Ginn, Eduardo Ascensão · Antipode · Europe

This article examines collective gardening spaces that have existed for decades across Lisbon, Portugal, analyzing the racialized urban geography revealed by the differing fortunes of makeshift gardens built by black migrants from Portugal's former colonies compared with white Portuguese community gardening spaces. Framing urban gardens as commons-in-the-making, it sets subaltern urbanism and the emergence of autonomous gardening commons against state erasure, overwriting, or top-down construction of commons. While urban gardening produces commons of varying persistence, the commons are shown to be closely entwined with processes of enclosure; the article argues these gardening commons are divergent, cannot be judged against any single abstract ideal, and ultimately do not share a "common" in common.

Gabrièle Larguinat-Turbatte · Histoire urbaine · Europe

A historical study (Histoire urbaine, 2018) examines empty spaces—excluding streets and squares—in Hellenistic-period Greek urban centers, mainly drawing examples from Asia Minor (Ionia and Caria). It develops a typology distinguishing temporary empty lots, abandoned neighborhoods, and spaces within city walls known as Gelandemauern, finding that while some hosted no activity or served as dumping grounds, others accommodated urban farming, livestock breeding, or various cultivation practices in central or marginal positions within the fortified city, and that many apparently empty areas likely held buildings of perishable materials.

Helen Traill · London School of Economics and Political Science Research Online (London School of Economics and Political Science) · United Kingdom

A doctoral thesis examined two community growing projects in Glasgow, United Kingdom, using multi-sited ethnography and in-depth interviews to analyze how "community" is constructed in local processes of exclusion and urban land development. It found that, despite hopes that community gardens could serve as sources of renewal and collective resistance to neoliberal urban capitalism, communal growing does not constitute a systematic alternative, and it identified the selective reproduction of class and social exclusion within the growing spaces studied.

Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) · FAO Agroecology Knowledge Hub · United Kingdom

A FAO Agroecology Knowledge Hub profile of Farm Hack, a community-led approach to developing, modifying and sharing designs for farm tools, machinery and other innovations, emphasizing farmer-to-farmer learning and platforms for collective 'hacking'. The first Farm Hack was started by The Greenhorns in the U.S.A. and has since been taken up in the U.K. It typically involves two complementary components: web-based and events.

Watanabe Y., Amemiya M., Shimpo N. · 都市計画報告集 (Reports of the City Planning Institute of Japan), No.16 · Germany

Surveys the management and social background of Germany's 'intercultural gardens' (Interkulturelle Gärten), which aim to integrate immigrants and refugees into local society, and considers their applicability in Japan. Finds that the gardens originated as a grassroots activity by locals and spread across Germany through a supporting organisation.

Pölling B., Prados M.-J., Torquati B. M., Giacchè G., Recasens X., Paffarini C., Alfranca O., Lorleberg W. · Moravian Geographical Reports 25(3):166-180 · Europe

Comparative analysis of urban farming enterprises in Spain, Italy and Germany, concluding that differentiation, diversification, and low-cost specialization are essential business strategies for long-term profitability in cities.

Martin P., Consalès J.-N., Scheromm P., Marchand P., Ghestem F., Darmon N. · Appetite · France (Marseille)

Study in a deprived Marseille neighborhood found that socioeconomically disadvantaged women with access to a community garden were more likely to adopt a healthy diet than matched controls without such access.

Cabral I., Keim J., Engelmann R., Kraemer R., Siebert J., Bonn A. · Urban Forestry & Urban Greening · Germany (Leipzig)

Assessed ecosystem services such as climate and water regulation and habitat provision across 30 allotment plots and adjacent community gardens in Leipzig, finding highest plant species richness in medium-intensity managed plots.

· Agriculture · Rome, Italy

Models rooftop rainwater harvesting to irrigate 2,631 fruit and vegetable gardens in Rome, estimating 19-33% of gardens could be water self-sufficient depending on irrigation efficiency.

· Regional Studies, Regional Science · United Kingdom (Edinburgh, Scotland)

Investigates the motivations and lived experiences of community garden participants in Edinburgh, Scotland.

Kaduna-Eve Demailly, Ségolène Darly · ACME: An International Journal for Critical Geographies · France (Paris)

Shows how Paris's temporary 'licence to occupy' model for urban gardens produces extreme precarity: gardens are placed on vacant lots slated for building and must physically relocate ('nomadic' gardening) when the temporary permit is revoked, revealing interim-use policy as structurally unstable.

Amélie Robert, Jean Louis Yengué · Environment and Ecology Research · France

This case study investigated the Bergeonnerie allotments in Tours, France, through in situ observations, user surveys, and interviews with municipal stakeholders. It found that these allotments provide not only provisioning services like food but also cultural ecosystem services, serving as a source of well-being for gardeners and a place for walking, sociability, and education for other people. Municipal stakeholders confirmed these broader benefits, indicating allotments offer more than just vegetable cultivation.

Hanna Hilbrandt · Urban Studies · Germany (Berlin)

This paper investigates the powers at play in informal housing practices and their regulation within Berlin's allotment gardens, where residency is prohibited. It argues that gardeners' ability to remain in these sites depends on their mediation of regulatory practices through relationships with state actors or institutional frameworks. This process highlights the co-construction of order and the establishment of boundaries for inclusion and exclusion.

Birgit Blättel‐Mink, Moritz Boddenberg, Lenard Gunkel, Sarah Schmitz, Franziska Vaessen · International Journal of Consumer Studies · Germany

This study analyzed Community-Supported Agriculture (CSA) in Germany, applying the concept of social innovation. It conducted a standardized survey, semi-structured interviews, and discourse analysis, identifying the crisis discourses to which CSA reacts and the motivations of its members. While CSA exhibits innovative facets such as solidarity, de-commodification, and prosuming, it is not a homogeneous phenomenon, differentiating into sociopolitical, spiritual-communal, and pragmatic-economic types that vary in their expression of social innovation and attitudes towards crises.

Barbora Duží, Bohumil Frantál, Marian Simón Rojo · Moravian Geographical Reports · Europe

This article provides a theoretical and conceptual introduction to urban agriculture in Europe, reviewing its diverging issues from a geographical perspective. It discusses urban agriculture within the context of urban and rural transformations, urban regeneration, agricultural restructuring, and land-use conflicts. The paper summarizes current research and presents main trends and concepts, emphasizing the challenges they pose to geographers.

Ana María Rivero Santos · Urban Agriculture & Regional Food Systems · Spain (Asturias)

This research aims to identify the contributions of social currencies to creating short food supply chains. A case study of RASTRU's consumption groups and community supported agriculture (CSA) in Asturias, northwest Spain, and its social currency "Copin," was presented. Through surveys and participant observation, it was evidenced how social currencies generate proximity and trust-based relations between consumers and producers, based on inclusion and fair access to food for people.

Laura Calvet‐Mir, Hug March · European Urban and Regional Studies · Spain (Barcelona)

In Barcelona, Spain, the characterization and evolution of urban gardening initiatives in the context of the 2007-2008 economic crisis and post-crisis were investigated. Using qualitative methods including participant observation, literature review, and semi-structured interviews, three prominent initiatives (54 gardens by the end of 2016), namely the Network of Municipal Gardens, the Network of Communitarian Gardens, and the Empty Plots Plan, were analyzed. The results show that urban gardens within the city are an expression of different, non-exclusive meanings that explicitly or implicitly mobilize notions of political gardening in a crisis and post-crisis context.

Grant J. Bosworth, John Hegarty · Ecopsychology · United Kingdom

This study reviewed the opinions of 419 supporters of a crowd-funded Community-Owned Farm (COF) in the English Midlands, 10 years after its inception. Findings indicated many long-term benefits for supporters, including feelings of empowerment and a sense of belonging to a wider community. The study also offered reasons for optimism regarding wider societal benefits, such as supporters initiating or increasing their involvement with other similar organizations and becoming more locally involved in their own community due to their COF involvement.

Leonardo Zaffi · Florence Research (University of Florence) · Italy

This chapter reconstructs the main themes and implementation methodologies characterizing spontaneous practices and micro-interventions for the transformation of residual urban spaces. It outlines the characteristics of experiences such as public art, placemaking, active design, and urban farming, considering their compatibility and potential effectiveness for systemic "urban acupuncture" actions in the oldest parts of cities. The final part focuses on action methodologies like DIY and user involvement to investigate the potential of "urban acupuncture" in the oldest parts of cities.

Magdalena Szczepańska · Europa XXI · Poland

In Poland's Poznań agglomeration, agricultural functions tend to be marginalized in urban development concepts and documents due to urbanization. Despite their ecological, health, landscape, recreational, and social functions, family allotment gardens are alarmingly perceived as restricting urban spatial development. This study presented the current state of family allotment gardens in the Poznań agglomeration and offered recommendations for spatial policy.

Judith Schicklinski · · Europe

This chapter discusses the reasons behind the re-appropriation of public space and its relation to urban food production. The commodification and privatization of public spaces are considered a spatial structure that transforms spaces into strategic resources. The urban gardening movement in European cities has drawn attention to using common green spaces for urban food production.